The invention relates generally to call-management methods and systems for providing automated call distribution capabilities and more particularly to methods and systems for cost effectively connecting agents of the systems to customers or potential customers.
Automatic call distribution (ACD) systems are used in applications such as providing product support call management for products of a company, providing customer service call management for handling questions relating to a particular service or the billing for the particular service, and providing marketing call management for the sale of goods or services of a company. An ACD system may be physically located on the premises of the company or may be on the premises of a central service provider, such as a regional telephone company. ACD agents for handling outgoing and incoming calls may be employees of the company or may be employees of a business enterprise that conducts call-handling services for a number of unrelated companies. The ACD agents may be located at a single office or may be distributed among a number of offices and/or homes (telecommuters).
Inbound transactions are calls initiated by customers and directed to ACD agents. On the other hand, outbound transactions are calls initiated by the agents to customers or prospective customers. An ACD system must select a strategy for distributing the inbound transactions to the ACD agents. One approach to the agent selection decision is to set up a sequencing scheme so that the same sequence of agents is followed until the first available agent in the sequence is found. The inbound transaction is then directed to this first available agent. The concern with the approach is that it creates xe2x80x9chot seats,xe2x80x9d i.e., an inequitable distribution of inbound transactions to the ACD agents who are high in the sequence. Thus, an alternative approach is to use a longest-idle-agent approach to provide a more equitable distribution of transactions.
In many call-management environments, agents are not equally adept at handling all types of transactions. For example, some transactions of a particular ACD system may require knowledge of a language other than the native language of the country in which the system is located. As another example, some transactions may require the expertise of xe2x80x9cspecialistsxe2x80x9d having training in the specific field to which a transaction relates, since training all agents to be knowledgeable in all areas would be cost-prohibitive. Therefore, a computer software company may have specialists in the area of a database product and specialists in the area of a word processing product. The agents may be assigned to different groups or departments on the basis of their specialties. Even within a group, there are often more highly trained agents and less experienced agents. Ideally, the highly skilled agents handle only those transactions that require a greater-than-average skill level.
Skills-based transaction routing requires knowledge of the individual call-handling skills of the various agents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,825,869 to Brooks et al., which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, describes a skills-based routing scheme. A resume is formed for each ACD agent. The resume includes data that is indicative of the call-handling capabilities of the agent and includes data that is indicative of any preferences of the system for particular individuals to process particular types of calls. When an inbound call is received, the call is tagged with identifications of abilities that are considered to be advantageous to processing the call. As a result, the skills of the agents can be correlated with the desired skills for handling the inbound call.
Skills-based routing provides a significant improvement over prior techniques for distributing calls among agents. However, the matching of the needed skills for handling a call with the resume information of the agents is not an instantaneous process. The correlation requires access to at least one database, since the resumes are typically stored in a database format. For situations in which the system determines desired call-handling skills for a particular call by accessing information regarding the caller (e.g., has the caller previously spoken with a particular agent regarding the same problem), a customer database needs to be accessed. Typically, the caller is placed on hold while the correlation process is implemented. For some calls, this requires either the caller or the company operating the ACD system to incur toll charges. Additionally, the telecommunication resources of the ACD system are unavailable for other uses while the call is on hold. If no agent having the necessary call-handling skills is immediately available, the toll charges continue to accrue. Moreover, the telecommunications resources continue to be allocated to the call.
A solution is to request that the calling party terminate the first call and make a second attempt after a set period of time. This may leave some customers dissatisfied. Moreover, there is no assurance that the appropriate agent will be available when the second call is completed, so that even the second call may be required to be placed on hold.
What is needed is a call-management method and system which efficiently utilize the resources of a call distribution capability, while ensuring satisfactory service to callers.
Call management utilizes automated processing to collect information from individuals, to identify agent attributes advantageous to handling calls involving the individuals, to correlate the identified agent attributes with stored attribute data regarding agents, and to employ camp-on techniques in establishing call sessions between the individuals and agents that are specified in the correlation process. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the process of collecting information includes enabling the individuals to enter information as user data via data connections that are separate from the call sessions. In the most preferred embodiment, the user data entered by an individual is received as a submission of a completed web-based form. The information from the web-based form is used in the correlation process, so that the automated camp-on techniques may be used when the appropriate agent or agent group queue is determined. While the web-based format is preferred, the information may be collected by other automated processes, such as through use of an interactive voice recognition (IVR) device.
For applications in which the information is collected as entries into forms, automated call distribution (ACD) capability is enabled by cooperation of a web-based system, a skills-based routing system, and a telephony-based system. Within the web-based system, a server provides access to the form and buffers the completed form. The server may also be used to translate the form, but translation may alternatively be performed at the skills-based resume routing system. If the telephony-based system is a conventional system, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), the information may be exchanged using an integrated services digital network (ISDN) user-to-user signaling field or a call-independent signaling connection in the appropriate network protocol (QSIG). On the other hand, if the invention is implemented in a telephony-over-local area network (ToL), all of the information may be passed over the data network.
The skills-based resume routing system includes a store of attribute data regarding the call-handling skills of particular agents. When information is received as a result of a submission of a web-based form, the correlation process is initiated. On the basis of the correlation, an agent or group of agents is selected. The web-based form also includes the telephone number that is to be used to contact the individual who submitted the form. In the preferred embodiment, the form also allows the individual to select a time at which a callback is to be made. At the appropriate time, a camp-on request to the appropriate agent group queue is generated. As previously noted, the camp-on request may be transmitted in an ISDN user-to-user signaling field or on a QSIG call-independent signaling connection. A company with multiple call centers can then route the camp-on request to the correct location on the basis of desired call-handling skills and the location of the caller. This reduces the likelihood that a call will occur from an incorrect call center, which would then incur toll charges to transfer the call to the correct call center. The calling individuals are not kept on hold, but are called back when an appropriate agent is available, thereby efficiently using telecommunications resources and reducing toll costs.
While the web-based embodiment is preferred, other embodiments are contemplated. For example, in order to provide similar functionality for conventional phone calls to either a PBX or ToL-based ACD system, the original telephone calls can be routed to an interactive voice response (IVR) device. The caller then answers IVR prompts that solicit the information needed to enable the skills-based resume routing capability. If necessary, the IVR could prompt the caller for a telephone number to which the callback should be made (note that the caller can simply confirm a previously determined callback number). Optionally, a callback time is also acquired. Following the information-gathering original call, telecommunications resources are freed and toll charges are no longer accumulated. The skills-based resume routing system determines the appropriate agent or agent group queue on the basis of the correlations between the gathered information and the stored attribute data for the individual agents. The camp-on request is then processed in the same manner as the web-based embodiment.